Conservative tricks with crime bills

Once again, Conservatives are claiming that crime bills they have refused to progress with will be thrown out if an election is called. They, of course, are blaming the Liberals for it already.

What is refreshing is that The Globe and Mail is calling the Conservatives out over it.

...it was the Tories themselves who killed crime bills last year, when it was Prime Minister Stephen Harper who called the election.

As the Conservatives ratchet up a campaign to make the Liberals and other opposition parties bear the blame for a fall election, some of the criticisms may clash with the record. Their attack on an opposition forcing the fourth election in 51/2 years may be weakened because they triggered the past two.

On Wednesday, Mr. Van Loan was complaining that an “unnecessary election” would kill 13 bills winding their way through Parliament that would end “faint-hope” parole for murderers, stiffen drug sentences and reduce house arrest.

What he didn't mention was that Mr. Harper's 2008 election call also killed bills on drug crime, youth crime and identity theft.

One of the bills Mr. Van Loan fretted over is legislation to address identity theft – a bill that was also killed when Mr. Harper called last year's election.

“This will be the third election we've had that bill before the House,” said New Democrat justice critic Joe Comartin, complaining that Canada's identity-theft laws are years behind those in Europe and the U.S.

Crime has proved to be such a no-risk political winner that the Harper government has for three years stacked up a long queue of crime bills in Parliament, sometimes letting them sit without debate, and blaming the opposition for stalling them.
Mr. Comartin said the Conservatives are transparently slowing the progress of some crime bills so that they can use it as a political weapon, mainly against the Liberals.

“Pushing the crime button has worked for them fairly effectively,” he said. “They'd love to be able to beat up on the Liberals.”

The pile-up occurs in part because the government introduces its crime bills as small amendments, forcing the justice committee to consider them one at a time, in sequence, often hearing the same witnesses repeatedly – instead of combining them in an omnibus bill.

My cynicism can't keep up.